


Shadows and Bright Light

by Amberlyne



Category: Ai no Kusabi
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:15:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberlyne/pseuds/Amberlyne
Summary: Shade has lived in Eos as long as her memory loss allows her to remember. Practically a ghost in the system, she has had plenty of time to observe Amoian society and form her opinion. When she learns about Riki and Iason's deaths her strong feelings on what is ethical and what is not make her set out on a turbulent journey. Allong the way she tries to find answers to her questions: Should pets have human rights? Does Tanagura treat all Amoians right? Should an AI be allowed to rule humans? And, most important to her, what role does she have to play in her own story?





	Shadows and Bright Light

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I came across Ai no Kusabi, many, many years ago now, the story has inspired me to ask questions. Ethical questions, such as: what gives any given being the right to control others? How far can a political system go before it must needs be overthrown or otherwise become its own destruction? But also personal questions, such as: How far could someone be willing to go in order to protect their own identity, or their world view? Would that person be willing to give up their freedom?  
> With this story I try to explore those questions.  
> And since I noticed I am not the only Ai no Kusabi fan with such questions I decided to share that story here.

She was lost, then she was discovered  
She was aimless, then she found a goal  
She was free, then she decided  
She played the game, then she didn't know what winning would be

\---

Rain so heavy that it limited sight to not much farther than a hand held up before one's own eyes. It pounded on windows, on the streets far below, on the people caught out in the sudden downpour with no shelter, no protective clothing, and with errands to finish. The city never slept and never stopped, not even for the heaviest burst of rain in recent years. The clouds were packed heavily above Tanagura, the metallic mechanical city, and Midas, the vulgar, neon lit pleasure town clinging to Tanagura's skirts, alike. Everyone who had business in the city knew there was no time to pause and wait out the shower. Deals had to be made, diplomacy had to continue, sales went on.

All this hubbub was wasted on a young woman who sat behind one of the many windows of an Eos apartment. Seated on a thick pillow on the ground, head bent over a dataslate, reading as quickly as possible, as if there wouldn't ever be enough time to read all that she wanted to read, she was completely oblivious to the sound of the rain that was being hurled against the glass by the heavy storm that raged outside.

Long, ginger strands of hair fell down from behind the ear where the eager reader had tucked them. She sat cross legged. The skirt of an off the shoulder bright yellow dress, that, based on the cut of its bodice, was probably quite elegant, unceremoniously pooled in the middle of her lap. It showed such a disregard of the fashionable item of clothing that would make any observer of the scene feel as if the wearer of the dress preferred practical items of clothing over aesthetically pleasing ones. The bright yellow dress as well as the ginger hair emphasized the fairness of the young woman's skin, making it appear almost white in the glare of the occasional flash of lightning that had started to appear outside. Still the young woman read on.

 

The muffled sounds of the rain hitting the glass were suddenly cut by the sound of a door sliding open and the tapping of measured steps across the vast room. The reader put down her dataslate and flowed to her feet. The dress she was wearing put emphasis on her slight build, its off the shoulder design revealing an elegant neck and protruding collar bones, its tight cut hugging a slender waist that flowed into narrow hips. With her legs visible under the knee long skirt the girl mainly looked like a young foal. Her bare feet made no sound as she took a few steps forward to greet the man walking towards her.

The man was very tall, almost unnaturally so. Every step he took emphasized the gracefulness of his limbs that were clearly visible in the uniform he was wearing. It was cut exactly so as to emphasize the man's build, leaving plenty of room to show off his strong shoulders and chest, but putting emphasis on his waist and long legs. A pair of dark grey eyes sat in a refined face that wore an almost melancholic expression. Long strands of golden hair, that looked almost wild, yet pleasantly arranged at the same time, fluttered behind him as he came closer.

“Welcome home,” she greeted in a pleasant voice. For a moment it seemed as if the man would smile, but, then he seemed to change his mind and his perfect features remained unmoved.

“Good evening Shade,” he answered her. His voice was calm and on the soft side. Yet she knew better than to mistake volume with power. The words came out of his mouth with a precision that made clear this man never said anything without considering his options first. A keen observer and accustomed to things being executed according to his orders, she knew he had already taken in the room, the pillow, the disregarded dataslate, and her appearance, and had drawn his conclusions.

He continued with a sentence she had expected. “Have you been reading all afternoon?” She had an answer ready.

“Most of it, even before it was raining the wind was too strong for my daily walk. I’m sorry, I know you want me to take exercise every day. I will make up for it as soon as the weather clears.”

“You may drop the act, Shade,” the man’s smooth voice cut through her excuses, “we both know that you care little about what I want you to do the moment you find something you want to read.” In a few steps he was beside the pillow she had been sitting on.

“And what is it that you have been reading?”

Shade bit her lip. To tell the truth or to tell a lie. With this member of the ruling elite she always made it a point to be careful. There were others she could manipulate as easily as she could count the fingers of her hand. This man was one of the few who saw through her schemes on a regular basis. She decided to go with the truth.

“The history of Amoi,” she confessed. “It’s an interesting read. Have you ever tried it?”

As if the man in front of her had the need to read it. Out of the people who knew the history of the planet, the blondies were among the ones who knew best. She could see from the man’s face that he was not amused by her pretended innocence. His features stiffened almost undetectably. She assumed the only reason why she noticed was because she had had plenty of time to observe him. Much as he had observed her she was sure, but she did not like to dwell on that thought. He towered over her as she tried to maintain her calm composure in order to match his.

“That does not sound as something you should read without the proper guidance. I shall look through the files and determine it they are suitable for your viewing,” the man ordained. “Pick up that dataslate and give it to me.”

The order, given with casual authority, suddenly flared a spark of anger in Shade. To be monitored like a child. To be told what to read and what not to read. To be told what to think. It was intolerable. This man already determined so much about her life. He carefully planned her days, down to what she had to wear, when she would go outside, what she would eat. If it were up to him she would never have a single thought to herself ever again.

“Raoul,” she snapped as she snatched the dataslate up off the floor where she had left it. “I am not a child.” But she was cut short by his hand snapping closed around her wrist. He was so much stronger than she was. Effortlessly he applied pressure to her wrist in such a way that she had no choice but to open the hand that held the dataslate. It fell into his other hand. He didn’t hurt her, he simply used his superior power to get what he wanted. Calculated, cold and precise.

She cursed herself mentally. She knew better than to provoke him. Raoul might not be needlessly cruel, but he lived by the rules, and in enforcing those he could be relentless. She lowered her eyes.

“I'm sorry. All I mean is,” she shyly looked up at him, “you have monitored and educated me for so many years now. Surely you can trust me to see the things I read within their proper context, and to come to you, should I have any questions regarding what I've read?”

He sighed and let go of her wrist.

“You assume I will be lenient with you because of the place you have taken in the daily routine of Eos. You assume too much. Rules do not change because of good behaviour and habits.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I will see to it that an annotated version of the planet's history is prepared for you. Until then, try to amuse yourself in some other way.”

She wanted to scream. How was she to amuse herself in the gilded cage she lived in? But she knew better than to mention her misgivings out loud. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather remained as bad as it was, she would have a chance to slip away. To disappear into the shadows and to roam the city below, like she sometimes managed to do. A ghost in the system. Monitored by no one except for Jupiter. Jupiter who had ordained she was to be observed. That she must have an identification tag that could be read by a few people only, so that she had the freedom to move about while her existence remained hidden from so many.

Yes, tomorrow she would sneak out. Her heart lifted at the idea. it didn't matter that Raoul did not approve of her roaming, that he planned her days in such detail as to ensure she could not go anywhere he wasn't aware of. She knew he doubted if Jupiter was right to give her this much freedom and so he tried desperately to keep her under control. She let him believe his control was in place, most of the time. But sometimes she needed space to breath, tomorrow she would claim it.

She was lost in her thoughts so much that she had not noticed Raoul walking away from her to take his seat at the dinner table that had been laid out for two people.

“Shall we eat?” He gestured to the chair on the opposite side.

She nodded and slowly walked over. Before she sat down she noticed his raised eyebrows as his piercing eyes took in the crumpled dress. She prepared herself for another lecture, but he remained silent.

She sat down and unfolded her napkin in order to place it on her lap as Raoul uncovered one of the dishes in front of him. Vaguely she recalled reading a complicated paper that explained how the dome shaped covers worked to keep the food underneath them not only at the desired temperature but also palatable for up to a day. She couldn't fully recall the exact workings and she found she didn't care. In the beginning she had wanted to know the mechanics of every little thing. Every bit of technology that operated the polished world she had come to live in. She had devoured every scientific paper Raoul had allowed her to read, and some he hadn't. But eventually her curiosity dried up. What did it matter how a sliding door worked as long as it never opened far enough to grant her freedom? She had shifted her interest, much to Raoul's dismay, to Amoi's bioengineering ventures.

Since bioengineering was Raoul’s area of expertise this had made her quest for knowledge easier and more difficult all at the same time. Since Raoul was the main authority on the subject, some would go as far as to call him a God in his own right, there was always plenty of new information to be had. However, it was easier for him to censure her readings when he thought one of her interests inappropriate. She had tried to argue of course, but Raoul had remained unmoved. Even though it might be other Blondies who had the name of being made out of ice, Raoul could compete with the best of them. In the end she had satisfied herself with the glimpses she could sneak at his research whenever he left her in the vicinity of a terminal for a second too long. At least she was a quick read. Thus she had pilfered the bits of information that she had longed for ever since she had found out about the human beings who weren’t human, who lived among them but were not considered equal, who were not free to do as they pleased, but instead were owned.  

From the first moment she had met Raoul’s pet, or rather, his pet back then, she had discovered in herself a complete lack of understanding. Here was a young woman, not so different from herself, who was considered a property. Raoul, of course, had tried to explain why the pets were in fact not human, but Shade did not agree. His arguments did not convince her and some drove her to simple anger. One such argument being that it didn't matter if the pets enjoyed human rights or not since  they were happy in their state. It simply did not amount to anything in her eyes. If her brain had been tinkered with so that she could not see beyond her own sexual desires, so that she couldn’t even think about a live lived in freedom, undoubtedly she would be happy with live in a bell jar as well. But why would that make her any less human? Was it okay to enslave someone because they allowed it? So far she had not found the answer, and any discussions with Raoul in that direction had led to nothing. In Raoul’s mind, anything that he created in his test tubes had no right to a will of its own.

But the pets were not even the worst of it. The worst were the young boy servants, the living furniture of Eos tower. Raoul could not claim these boys were not human and fortunately he had not insulted either Shade’s intelligence, or his own, by trying to convince her otherwise. After all, she had a mouth, and so did the boys. “Where did you come from?” was an easy enough question. And if asked often enough an answer would eventually be provided, even if the subject of the question was initially too terrified to answer.

And so, like a ten year old vegetarian who asks her parents why she would eat farm animals but not her pet dog, she had forced Raoul to agree to disagree with her, as if he was her frustrated parent who tried to convince himself she was only going through a fase.

 

“Shade?! Are you listening to me?”

She snapped to attention as she became vaguely aware of the annoyed tone in Raoul’s voice.

“I'm so sorry, I was lost in thought for a moment. What were you saying?”

Raoul sighed but refrained from further comments. He had given up on trying to keep Shade from her daydreams and bouts of absent mindedness. Instead he repeated the words she hadn't heard him say before.

“You will have to come to the lab tomorrow. We need to run some further tests.”

It was Shade's turn to raise her eyebrows this time. More tests? Why? And why now? The last tests Raoul had run on her were at least a year ago. She had thought her days as a lab rat were finally in the past.She was sick of being poked and prodded. Of having to answer endless lines of questions, of being made to jump through all kinds of mental and physical hoops, of being pierced by needles to draw blood, to see how she would react to a certain opiate, to examine how quickly she could solve a simple puzzle. She had thought he had given up on ever finding out her origin. She had. After eight years she had given up the hope that her memories would ever return and she would know where she came from. She was tired of trying to find out. Therefore the question she answered him with was flat.

“Why? Why bother? I don't remember anything, Raoul. And you haven't found anything. Maybe we should accept it the way it is.”

Raoul ignored her objections.

“My assistant will draw a few vials of blood and after that we'll run a brain scan. After that you will join me for lunch.”

“Fine.” She picked up her cutlery a little more aggressively than strictly necessary. She knew there was no point in arguing. Raoul set the rules and she had to follow. She remembered she had hoped to sneak out tomorrow. Damn it! Why did he always ruin her plans? If she didn't know better she would swear Raoul could read minds.

She started to stab the food on her plate with her fork but ended up putting very little of the stuff in her mouth. Her appetite had left her. Her brain scrambled to find a way to change the subject. Suddenly she recalled why she had started to read the history of Amoi in the first place.

“Surely you haven't been inspired to drag me back to your lab by that explosion yesterday? Or were you thinking just like the explosion cleared up Dana Burn for you, the aftershocks could clear up the foggy test results of over eight years?”

Before the words had even left her mouth she realized they had been a mistake. A mix of emotions rushed across Raoul's face. Emotions she could not place, nor recognize. Not because they weren't known to her, but simply because she had never seen Raoul display them before. In the blink of an eye his face had returned to its calm, emotionless expression, but she was sure that in the split second he had lost his composure she had seen pain, anger, and, could it have been, sadness? The meaning of it all eluded her.

Having regained his composure, Raoul continued his meal as if nothing had happened. His voice was as calm and collected as ever when he replied. “Sarcasm will get you nowhere, Shade. It is not up to you to question any tests I decide to run on you. You agreed to these conditions yourself.”

It angered her too much to admit he was right, so she kept her silence. Besides, he had presented her with a new puzzle to figure out. What was so important about the explosion yesterday that Raoul would display emotions? The man detested emotions and the mortality they represented. So what could possibly have caused this event? She knew that Harvey had collapsed along with the old military construct. Could it be Raoul had had an important project there? But even that would hardly bring Raoul to feel anything, surely. After all  projects could be redone.

She decided to try a different angle. “Your lab called earlier today. They received an important shipment you had to sign for personally. They said you weren't there, and they didn't know how to reach you. They wouldn't let me sign in your stead. Ray handled it in the end…” she let her words trail off, hoping Raoul would pick up the threads of the story and let something slip.

“Ray told me when I arrived just now. The shipment had to be processed quickly. He handled it well.” Shade felt disappointment creep up on her. Again, nothing. Was she losing her touch, to be getting so little out of him? Not that Raoul was such an open book. But she had a distinct feeling he was carefully avoiding a subject this evening. She sighed.

“Sounds like they can't do without you at the lab. Aren't you afraid things will be in shambles when we get there tomorrow? We received several calls from people who didn't find you at the lab throughout the day.”

“It'll have to do until the crisis is over.”

And there it was. A crisis? She hadn't heard about a crisis. Dana Burn had been old, and abandoned. Harvey was off limits for all but a select few. Surely its collapse could not constitute a crisis. Tanagura had pulled up a smokescreen around bigger mishaps. And if the collapse of Dana Burn and Harvey was the crisis he referred to, where else would Raoul be but at his lab? If things needed to be covered up there was a lot of tinkering with minds to do. No, this had to be something different. A reason for him to not be at his usual work. She hoped her curiosity wasn't showing on her face too plainly.

“Well, in that case I'm sure you and lord Mink have plenty of things to discuss. I'm surprised he did not come here with you, given your scheduled appointment for this evening.”

Raoul did not reply straight away. Instead, for a long moment he just sat there, his face as if cut out of marble. Then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, the door chime sounded. Raoul closed his mouth again and Shade got up from her place at the table. She turned around just as Ray, the furniture, entered, followed by someone Shade had not expected.

“The black market broker Katze here to see you master Raoul. He says you knew he would be coming?” Shade could tell Ray felt uneasy. Things in the Am household were usually planned in detail. Ray made sure all of Raoul's business was perfectly in order. The shipment incident earlier today and now the unannounced guest must be a strange interruption of Ray's routine. She didn't pay it too much attention though, just as she ignored Raoul's reply and his dismissal of Ray, as she was too busy running at Katze.

“Such an unexpected surprise!” She stood on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. Something he tolerated, if not necessarily gracefully. Sometimes she felt that was all he ever did, tolerate her. As usual his face, not at all unpleasant looking though marked with a characteristic scar across one cheek, did not betray a single emotion. He didn’t look happy, nor displeased to see her. It didn’t bother her, she was used to his calm and steady demeanor. In fact, she always felt strangely assured by his presence. Raoul was predictable and provided stability to her days, Katze was the man she trusted with her life. Perhaps it was because he had found her all those years ago. Found her and brought her to Eos, but found her just the same. For now, she just hoped she could get the information out of him that Raoul was so clearly denying her.

“Maybe you can clue me in on this mysterious crisis Raoul refuses to tell me about. I am quite miffed about it, so you had better tell me quickly. Before lord Mink arrives and I will be even more upset,” she teased, knowing full well it had no effect on him, but finding it impossible to resist just the same.

Next to her Katze stiffened visibly, but not enough to forget his manners, as he gave a slight bow in Raoul's direction.

"Good evening Lord Am." He looked at Raoul, calmly, but clearly looking for instruction in a situation he had not expected to find himself in.

“Ah, I see you _do_ know what is going on,” she continued, looking from the one man to the other. “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”

“I see you did not tell her.” Katze remarked, just as Raoul said “lord Mink will not be joining us, Shade.”

"You know he never tells me anything, Katze" she retorted. "Raoul thinks I am a child still. As does lord Mink. Perhaps it is better he's not joining us. A girl can have only so many father figures around before she goes crazy." She turned on her spot, then darted towards the couch. With a pointed look at raoul she took hold of each side of the skirt of her dress and carefully spread out the skirt as she allowed herself to fall backwards onto the seat. She was provoking him openly now, all three of them knew it.

"Hush, Shade." The gentleness of Raoul's voice surprised her. She felt her smile fall off her face, all the playfulness with which she had been teasing the two men gone. Raoul allowed her teasing and provoking him to a certain point, but once his limits were reached he never hesitate to put her back in her place. Not cruelly so, but in ways that left no room for discussion, and most certainly not in the tone his voice took on now. Once again she felt as if he had been overcome by some great sadness that she could not comprehend. She felt oddly off balance.

"Given your history, I decided to would be better coming from you," Raoul continued, while turning to Katze.

Katze did not agree or disagree. He simply bowed his head in acknowledgement of Raoul's decision and walked over to Shade, bringing a chair with him so he could sit across from her.

Once he had sat down she looked him straight in the eyes. It was as if through those eyes, for once, she could look straight into his soul. The raw emotion she saw there frightened her.

"It's bad." She concluded. "So bad, neither of you knows where to begin." She had never known Raoul to cower out of telling her something. Nor would he ever hide behind Katze. Katze was Iason’s man,the only reason he and Raoul interacted was, well, her.

Raoul walked to a spot behind the couch and leaned against the backrest right next to where she sat.

"Yes, it's bad," he confirmed, his back turned towards her as she stared up at him.

She took a deep breath and turned back to Katze.

"Just rip off the band aid. What's the use of torturing ourselves any longer?"

He didn't disappoint her. Just like always, he did what had to be done no matter the consequences, no matter what his private thoughts were, he came straight to the point, sure of his target.

"Iason and Riki are dead, they were in Dana Burn when it collapsed."

 

Well, The band aid was off, she reflected through the haze that seemed to cloud her brain. She felt strangely numb. As if the band aid had not so much revealed a wound but had simply vanished the injured body part all together. She looked from katze, his face passive as usual, to Raoul, who still had his back turned. She turned around to sit on her knees as she placed a hand on his arm.

"Raoul, I'm so sorry. My behaviour earlier… if I'd known…" she stopped talking. Her voice sounded strangely thick and she felt immensely stupid. What would babbling on about apologies help now? She hadn't known, because be hadn't told her, and she had acted the way she always acted: testing the boundaries of her cage, of Raoul's patience. She'd have to live with the fact she had tormented him about the fact that he had lost his best friend. Perhaps she should have known. What else could those emotions she had seen on his face earlier have meant? She didn’t know exactly what the friendship between the two men had entailed, but she knew instinctively that the bond had run deep. The only few times she had seen Raoul truly worried had been on Iason's account.

It wasn't that she overly cared for Iason. Raoul's demeanour might be cool, in her opinion Iason Mink was a block of ice. She treated him with the respect Raoul had instilled in her, but that was as far as she could tolerate the man. Even though he had not actively done anything to grieve her personally, had not so much as raised his voice at her, in him she had found the personification of a system she loathed. Head of the syndicate, she projected everything she hated about Amoi on his head. She would have hated Jupiter in his stead, she did to a certain extent, but it proved difficult for her to hate a thing she had never seen.

And then there was Riki. Riki was human. Riki was enslaved. Riki was like her. The rage she had felt when she had heard what Iason had done, picked up a young boy off the streets and brought him to Eos to be enslaved, she had flown into a rage that led to the only time Raoul had called Katze without her requesting him to do so. For three days she had sat on the couch in the black market broker’s office. Rolled into a ball and without speaking a word she had worked through the fact that she was angry, and could not do a single thing about that which made her feel that way. On the morning of the fourth day Katze had made her sit up and asked her if she had accepted what she could not change. She had simply nodded and he had sent her home with a pat on the knee.

From that day onward she had tried to keep an eye out for the boy from the slums. Raoul called it an obsession and found ways to keep her schedule full. The first months of Riki’s stay in Eos he wasn’t seen anywhere anyway and so there wasn’t much she could do to begin with. Once Riki had made his debut and was seen in public more often the rumours had already started flying about the things Iason Mink was doing with his mongrel pet. Other pets loathed him, all blondies, Raoul the first among them, found Iason’s choices appalling, and Shade had desperately wanted to meet the boy.

She hadn’t for some time. Their lives had no reason to cross each other and so they didn’t. Shade had doubled her excursions that involved sneaking out of the house. As soon as Raoul realized what she was up to he monitored her more closely, but since he could not be around all day to drag her back home whenever she ran, and since he knew she would never be able to leave Tanagura because of the restrictions on her ID tag, he had given up on avoiding her escapades all together. It was simply not possible to contain her and so he resigned himself to be satisfied with intercepting her from time to time and giving her a lecture about obedience.  

Dressed in dark clothes, a hood pulled over her flaming red hair, she would wander around Eos tower, staying in the shadows where she drew the least attention. Observing the hustle and bustle of everyday life at the center of power. The elites at their work to make sure Amoi thrived, the furniture scrambling to allow for everyone’s smooth sailing, and the pets, pretty objects of entertainment, purposefully uneducated, unaware of the injustice done to them. Except one.

Finally, deciding that perhaps she would stop her conquest if she was given the opportunity to interact with the object of her obsession, Raoul had taken her along to an official event of some kind. Although she did not attend formal occasions often she was accepted as part of Raoul’s entourage. She hid her excitement as Raoul led her to a chair close to where Riki sat at Iason’s feet, headphones on, clearly disinterested in the formalities.

She waited until all the other people in attendance had occupied themselves. It rarely happened that any of the elites were interested in talking to Raoul’s protege. Many were unsure as to how much they could trust her and those who had conversed with her had found her tongue too sharp to find the experience pleasant. Since she wasn’t a pet they could not reprimand her and it was obvious that many of them did not know what to do with a young woman who wasn’t part of their social circle, but also no part of the entertainment or the servants. Therefore no one noticed as she slipped out of her chair and onto the floor where she knelt down next to the dark haired boy and sat back on her heels, simply staring at him until he felt her gaze and looked up.

“What do you want?” His voice was brusque, his eyes fierce. He didn’t even bother to take his headphones off.

“I just wanted to meet you.” she offered pleasantly. Riki was clearly taken aback by her unperturbed reaction to his rude behaviour but the scowl remained on his face.

“Why? I don’t know what status you hold, but it’s clear you are not a pet. Shouldn’t you get back to your comfortable chair and enjoy conversation with the high ranking bastards over there?”

From the stories she had heard about him she had not expected him to be thrilled with her attention, still she felt intrigued by the way he seemed to look right through her. Why did so many profess their hate for him? It was very well possible this was the first interesting person she had met ever since coming to Eos. Not that she was going to tell him, at least not yet.

“I don’t expect you to know,” she started her reply, “but although I’m not a pet, I am not free either. As for conversation with the ‘high ranking bastards’ over there,” she deliberately copied his crude language, “they would get bored with me, or I with them within a couple of minutes.”

He didn’t raise to the challenge she had offered him and she found she was almost disappointed. Maybe he wasn’t as interesting after all. But she hadn’t counted on the comeback he gave her.

“So you’ve come to bore Iason’s strange pet instead.” It wasn’t a question. Just a statement, clearly meant to provoke. She couldn’t help but laugh at it.

“What’s so funny?” Riki sounded extremely annoyed by now. “Just leave me alone. You don’t want to be seen with me. Trust me. I don’t know what your agenda is, but you won’t further it by hanging out with the slum mongrel.”

“I have no agenda,” she assured him, a smile still on her lips, “and sorry for laughing, but it’s just been a while since I met someone who wasn’t kissing someone’s ass one way or another.” He huffed at that, which she chose to ignore. Let him think what he would, it didn’t matter if he believed her or not.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” she started getting up to leave. “I’ll leave you to your music now.”

And with that she had walked back to her chair and sat out the event in utter boredom. They never really spoke again.

 

And now Iason and Riki were both dead. Just like that. She found it hard to comprehend. Raoul walked towards the window and she let her hand fall down as his arm slipped away from under it. She turned back to Katze. His face was devoid of emotions still but his eyes showed her his utter anguish in a way that seemed to cut right through her soul. She wished she knew what to say to comfort them both, to comfort herself, but her brain was empty. A single question came to mind.

“How do we know for sure?” Had one of them been there? Then how had they survived? It had to be a mistake. Surely no one could have confirmed Riki and Iason had been there, it seemed ridiculous.

“We know because I was there.” It was the first time she had ever heard emotion in Katze's voice. She stared at him in disbelief as the story fell from his lips, like hailstones into a winter pond. How he and Riki had gone to Dana Burn in order to find Guy. How Riki emerged from the collapsing structure with Guy. And finally, how Riki had gone back to stay with Iason, forever.

She heard the story, accepted it as true, and yet she felt a disconnect between that acceptance and reality. Surely she would hear the door chime in a moment and Ray would announce the arrival of Lord Mink. He and Raoul would talk business for a while, then switch to more pleasant topics until, eventually, as they always did, they would briefly touch on the subject of pets. Iason would cut the conversation short by pointing out his private life was nobody's business, not even Jupiter's, and that would be the end of it.

Jupiter. Through the haze she mentally groped her way to a thought that was beginning to form somewhere in a corner of her brain. Iason was head of the syndicate, the puppeteer, the true power behind the black market that Katze navigated so carefully for him. What would happen to all that? Who would ensure Tanagura thrived now? A crisis indeed. But for whom?

She stood up and turned towards Raoul who was still staring out of the window. Did he think she could not see his reflection in the glass? To the rain he showed plainly the agony that he had been hiding from her, from everyone else. Their eyes met in the rain streaked mirror. In that moment she suddenly felt a love for him she had never felt in all the years he had been her guardian.

In those years he had been cold, intimidating, annoying, an authority she had lashed out against until she had finally accepted it. She had assumed they had learned to tolerate each other, nothing more, nothing less. But now, for the first time, she considered him as more than an authority that always blocked her way, she considered him as a living being, an emotional being, a being capable of friendship, and loss. The emotions he had never shown now showed him to her as a complete person rather than elements of one. She had shared a space with him without knowing him. He hadn't let himself be known.

It was easy to love Katze. Katze was steady, a rock she could build on. Her guardian angel who had found her wandering the streets of Ceres. A young woman in a man's world, an easy target. He had kept her safe. She found his stoicism endearing, the way he seemed to ignore her but was always there to catch her reassuring. She had never deemed Raoul capable of caring. Now she wondered if she had done him wrong.

She was starting to feel dizzy and placed a hand of the armrest of the couch to keep herself steady. She had to say something. Words of comfort. Reassurance. But either she didn't have it in her, something she thought altogether possible since Raoul had told her often enough that all her brain contained was sarcasm, or she was incapable in the moment of emotion and confusion, because the only thing that pushed itself to the tip of her tongue, through the haze, through the dizziness, was a strangely practical question that she was sure not one of them wanted to talk about.

"What will happen to Tanagura now?" Such a stupid question. She slapped a hand against her own mouth. She felt sick. Was that because of her question? No, it had to be the dizziness she had felt earlier.

Raoul turned around to answer her. His face a mask again.

"The information you have been given is classified. Outside of this room no one knows. As far as everyone else is concerned Iason had business in Harvey, he was still there as an unfortunate miscalculation caused the district to collapse as Dana Burn was blown up. With Iason gone his pet was disposed of." He sounded as if he was reading an official statement now. And instead of hating him for his lack of emotion, as she had always done before, now she saw what it cost him to keep that mask of calm in place. Had it always been that plain to see? She glanced at Katze to see if he saw it too. She thought maybe he did.

"The blondie council has been in emergency meetings all day," he continued. "A new head of the syndicate must be appointed. Jupiter is being consulted. And the continuing operations of Amoi must be ensured."

So that was the bottom line. Personal loss did not matter in the face of the greater picture. She could not bring herself to think of it as the greater good. Their deaths would not even amount to a footnote in the history of the quadrant's foremost pleasure planet. Raoul might say "as far as everyone else is concerned" but she was sure that the public would never even know about Iason's death. He would just be gone, a different blondie in his place. Riki was already less than an afterthought anyway. And the trade in pleasures, legal and illegal, would continue as normal.

Another wave of nausea hit her and she stumbled forward against Katze. He caught her awkwardly with one arm before she could hit the ground.

"Shade!" Raoul rushed over to her side, placing his hand on her back to support her.

And that was when it happened. The dizziness, the nausea, the weakness in her knees that had caused her to stumble forward culminated in an agonizing pain. It pulsed through her entire body as a strange contraction. She tried to speak, but found she couldn't. All she could do was stare from the one man to the other as slowly her vision was being taken over by a golden light. A light that surrounded her and the two men holding her. She heard a scream but she wasn't sure who's it was. Was she the one screaming, or was it Katze, or Raoul? The contractions seemed to flow from her, through their hands that were touching her, through their arms, into their bodies. The were tied together in a bundle of pain. It seemed unending.

Something had to give. Either the pain had to subside, or she would stop to exist, there was no other way. She was beginning to hallucinate. It seemed as if she saw the events of the evening in her mind's eye, running backwards. Raoul dashed back to the window, she unstumbled to her place next to the couch. Raoul’s eyes met hers in the window. She sat back down. The images sped up, going faster and faster until everything was a blur and she couldn't make out anything. And all the while there was the pain, and the golden light.

 

Until suddenly, everything went black.

 

She came to with a start. And took an awkward step that her body had been preparing to take without her knowledge. She was walking towards the door, grabbing Katze's hand as she was trying to shake off Raoul's that was on her elbow. She froze mid stride and simply sunk to the floor.

A moment long she experienced a strange duality. She remembered the contractions of pain, the golden light, the conversation before it. Yet at the same time she was convinced that only moments before she had been reassuring Raoul that it would be best if she went with Katze. That she would be calmer after having a moment to breath.

They had been arguing, she and Raoul, as usual, about her privileges and duties. She was extremely angry with him. A cold machine who always knew best, who never betrayed an emotion. She couldn’t stand it one more minute. She wanted to be away from the apartment, away from Raoul, and in a bold move she had called Katze te take her away. He had just arrived, that was why she was walking towards the door.

No, katze had just caught her as she stumbled. And Raoul had rushed towards her. They were grieving, all three of them were hurting. Raoul was real, Raoul felt things, just like she did. But then why was she this angry with him? Her two views of him did not want to fit together. What would happen now?

She had memories, she realized. Memories of what had happened after she had left with Katze. In his usual way he had not said much but taken her to a place to calm down instead, in this case Ainis. They had walked through the park and Shade had grumbled about the things Raoul would not allow her to do. She had run out of steam eventually, she always did. It wasn’t as if she could change her situation, being angry wouldn’t help her, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“You must think me very foolish” she had said, as they sat on a park bench looking at a beautiful bed of purple flowers. “Getting so angry at things I know I can’t change.”

His reply had been one of his kinder ones.

“Not foolish, Shade, merely young.”

She had laughed at that and allowed him to take her home.

Memories of events that took place after the situation she was currently in. It had to be impossible, but it wasn’t.

"How the… what?!" Katze was the first of the two men to make a sound.

"What happened? That is something I'd like to know," came Raoul's voice from behind her. He came around to crouch in front of her and took hold of her shoulders.

"What did you do Shade?"

But she couldn't answer. Because she didn't know. She shook her head passively as Raoul started to shake her.

"How did you do that? What happened?" He was beginning to sound as if he was panicking. She held up her hands defensively as he shook her harder and harder. Until Katze firmly put a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't think she can tell us Lord Am."

She closed her eyes, once again thanking her lucky stars for his protection of her.

"Time moved backwards," she whispered with shaking lips. "It was as if my memories were torn out of my brain. It hurt, it hurt so much. And now I remember the future." She stopped her helpless babbling at that.

"So you saw a rewind as well." Katze's eyes narrowed. "Lord Am?"

Raoul inclined his head once. He had seen it too then. Memories flying backwards. But why? What did it mean? The haze was starting to clear from her mind only to be replaced by confusion. She had been by the couch, now she was halfway across the room. She had been wearing a yellow dress, now she was wearing a dark green one. It wasn't just her. Raoul and Katze looked different as well. Realization was starting its crawl from the back of her mind to the front, but for a little while at least she was not willing to accept the conclusion her mind was drawing.

The pain had gone, but it left her winded, she could hear the two others breath heavily as well. Still, they were moving about while she was still sitting on the ground with hardly any control over her body it seemed. Katze on the other hand was striding over to the closest terminal and punched a few keys. She heard him curse softly under his breath.

"What is it?" Raoul had let go of her and gotten up, though he did not leave her side. Suddenly it seems too much of an effort to keep her own body upright. She did what she could not remember ever doing, she rested her head against his leg. He looked down as if startled, but he did not move away.

"The date," Katze clarified his cursing. "According to this terminal, the date is a little less than a year earlier than, well, before whatever it was that just happened. Shade is not wrong when she says she remembers the future."

Shade stared at him in disbelieve. She still did not want to accept that which she was beginning to feel was the only explanation. She ran her tongue past her lips that felt strangely dry. She struggled to find her voice as she whispered.

"Are you suggesting I turned back time?"

"That's utter nonsense." Raoul sounded irritated at best, he had seemed to be teetering on the verge of angry from the moment the golden light had cleared now that she thought about it. "No one can turn back time."

"Unless it was a kind of electrical wave that changed the date on this equipment though…" Katze let his voice trail off. Clearly he did not wish to end up in an argument with Raoul in this state. Shade did not blame him, she too picked her battles wisely when Raoul was displeased.

Suddenly Raoul bent over her and before she could protest he had already lifted her and carried her over to the couch, where he carefully deposited her. More carefully than she had expected. Maybe his anger wasn't directed at her.

"We are certain then? We are in a different time?"

"I have checked the neural net. I'm certain." Katze had reverted to his perfect servant attitude. He stood at attention, ready to report, not a single emotion showing.

Shade let herself sink into the pillows around her. She felt exhausted. More than exhausted, she felt confused. What had she done? How could this be possible? She tried to fight down the little voice in her head that whispered at her that she should have let Raoul pick her brain apart to find her missing memories. Perhaps those missing memories were the key to what had happened.

But even if they were, was finding out worth letting Raoul temper with her mind? Every fiber in her being wanted to scream no. She had always resisted such an intimate examination, in fact, she had threatened to kill in order to prevent it, she was not changing her mind now. Not even for this. Whatever this was. They hadn't even found out to what extend things had changed. All she knew was that she had heard terrible news and then her body had done something she didn't know it was capable of.

She didn't even dare think what it would mean if she had actually turned back time. She didn't want to allow herself even the tiniest bit of hope. No, maybe she was just lost in another daydream, a very real one. Maybe she had slipped into one after Katze had told her the news. So it was best not to hope. What if she did hope, believing the daydream to be true, only to wake up from the daydream to find herself having to face that sinking feeling in her stomach again. But then, if all this was a daydream, it felt incredibly real.

She became vaguely aware of Raoul and Katze speculating what the implications of the evening's events could be.

"I remember I came here at your request to discuss the Dana Burn incident, Lord Am. But I also remember coming here at Shade’s request to take her out of Eos for a while. I can reconstruct my memories from that second point, up to the first point, until the golden light appeared and we found ourselves back here.” Katze was reporting. Raoul had started pacing.

“I can too. Everything implies we have moved back in time somehow. The world is as it was. I cannot find any information about the events that happened after this point in time, even though I have clear memories of them. I should run a diagnostic on my memories.” Raoul was beginning to take leaps faster and faster. Count on him to look towards science, diagnostics, and research in order to explain the situation.

“Is there two of us?” Shade managed to blurt out. “If we moved back in time. Is there two of each of us?”

Raoul was already at a terminal before she even finished her question. He was punching in various identification tags. His hair fell in front of his face as he leaned forward to do so. He remained silent for a while. Katze stood silent, Shade shifted in her spot uncomfortably.

“No.” Raoul’s voice was decisive. “It’s just us. There are no other beings identifying as any of us on this planet.”

“So we weren’t bodily moved through time?” A hint of surprise sounded in Katze’s voice. “It’s more like our conscious moved back or something?”

“It would seem so.”

“We have to find out if it’s just us, or if more people got affected.”

“If they were we would have noticed by now. I would have been contacted.”

“So if would seem our mishap has gone unnoticed.”

Their conversation was picking up speed. She let it go, too tired to try and get a word in. Her brain wouldn’t stop running scenarios. All the things she could do, all the things she could change now that she had foreknowledge of events. She didn’t want to think about it. All she wanted to do was sleep, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts from taking shape. And through it all, the same idea kept popping up: Iason and Riki aren’t dead now. We can change that too. Everything can have meaning. She didn’t know what she meant with that last thought, but it kept running through her head.

 

Suddenly Ray entered the room. He looked so utterly normal that the two men, who had still been talking until he entered, fell abruptly silent.

“Lord Mink here to see you, master Raoul.” Ray announced.

Only then did she realize who was behind the young boy. Unnaturally tall, graceful limbs like Raoul’s, waist long, light blond, hair, icy blue eyes that sat in a perfect, marble cut, face. She looked straight into the face of the man she despised most in the world and spat out the only sentence her mind allowed her to utter:

“You are dead!”

 


End file.
